Nina's smile grew ever more fixed. "They're breasts, not microphones," she barely managed to avoid saying. "You don't need to talk directly at them for me to hear you," she narrowly kept from continuing.
Nathaniel, the man who'd cornered her into this conversation, seemed oblivious to her irritation. "So at first I was annoyed by the impurity," he said, continuing to leer at her as he talked, "but then I realized that the conductivity factor had actually improved by fourteen percent!" He smiled hopefully at her. "I'm sure you can see the implications."
Nina kept her plastic smile firmly in place, trying to add an apologetic cast to her eyes. "I'm actually not much on the technical end of things," she said. "I'm in Marketing."
You can tell,
she wanted to say,
by the fact that I'm actually wearing something remotely stylish and have groomed myself in a fashion befitting a social occasion.
"I'm just here for the conference to see if any of the things that you people have been working on might have commercial applications."
Of course, that was a little difficult when just about everyone here spoke the same brand of incomprehensible technobabble. Nina didn't think of herself as stupid by any stretch, but this deep into the upper echelons of every scientific field, she felt about as smart as Larry the Cable Guy. She was just glad she had her own army of pet geeks to translate it down into a layman's explanation, or she'd have to come back to work on Monday with a sheepish smile and a folder full of gibberish.
But even the guys she'd brought with her were like Nathaniel, here (who was now looking at her with a hangdog expression that suggested he was still hoping to get into her panties by the end of the night.) Namely, one step away from being maced. She knew that in the movies, nerdy guys were supposed to get all tongue-tied around pretty girls (and really, Nina only thought of herself as "a little above average", but dressing nice and paying attention to her hair and make-up apparently made these guys think she was a minor goddess.)
But the truth of the matter was that there was a difference between 'shy' and 'no social skills', and in that gap lay nothing but leers, inappropriate comments, constant borderline-stalking, and generally the sort of behavior that suggested that nobody here had any idea how to actually interact with a woman who wasn't computer-generated. They all had the kind of super-charged libido you got from being horny your entire adult life and never ever getting laid, and the kind of skills at talking to women that helped ensure that state would continue indefinitely.
You could tell just by looking at them. Put the men and women in this room into a line-up, and even the most untrained observers could tell which ones were scientists and which ones had gotten roped into attending this after-hours mingling session, simply by looking at their outfits. The scientists were wearing nightmares of polyester, off-the-rack suits that were either two sizes too big or (more horrifyingly) a size too small, and other sartorial nightmares. They didn't know what matched, they didn't know what clashed--even the women wore terrible outfits, which seemed to suggest that at least in the realm of fashion, the "nature or nurture" question was definitively settled. She wished that the whole affair had been formal, instead of semi-formal. Almost everyone could figure out a rented tuxedo.
Not that Nina was shallow. At least, she didn't think it was shallow to expect a man to dress nicely to impress a woman (or vice versa.) Taking a little care about your appearance demonstrated that you put a priority on impressing the other person, on being pleasant and approachable. Little things, like combing your hair (how did he not notice it was sticking up like that?) or finding a shirt that matched the pants (did he pick that tie out on a dare?) or even, say, noticing that you'd spilled cocktail sauce on your shirt and trying your best to remove the stain...those were all just little things that said, "I take care of myself and like to look my best." Nina had dated a lot of guys who weren't exactly supermodels, but they still made sure to present themselves well. It was just that simple.
But these people...Nina let her gaze wander over the crowd (mostly to distract herself from Nathaniel, who hadn't let her total incomprehension stop his boring anecdote for more than a second or two. If her professional responsibilities didn't require her to be polite...) Ugly lime-green suit, tuxedo-patterned t-shirt, striped dress with plaid sweater, salsa stained shirt, serious candidate for World's Worst Combover, immaculately-cut suit with oh sweet God that looked gorgeous...
The second Nina saw him, she couldn't take her eyes off him. The man just seemed to radiate charisma, the sharp, elegant lines of the suit suggesting...wealth, power, authority, virility, just everything Nina could possibly imagine to be wonderful about a man. He just seemed to be the center of the entire room--once she noticed him, she wondered how she'd ever been able to look at anything else.
Everyone else seemed to see it as well. Everyone around him seemed quiet, deferential as he held court on something (Nina couldn't hear it from over here, but simply from his demeanor, she intuitively knew that he was dispensing pearls of true wisdom.) He caught her eyes, and the tiny smile he gave made Nina swoon a little. She felt silly when she realized that was actually what she was doing, but it was true--she was suddenly just a little bit unsteady on her feet, like she'd had too much wine. But she wasn't drunk on alcohol, she knew. She was drunk on him.
He headed in her direction, and the crowd just seemed to part for him. All around him, men and women stepped aside as he walked towards her with the grace of a panther. Nina could see it on the faces of the other women in the crowd, that same unquenchable desire that must be in her own eyes, but he knew how to dismiss a woman with his eyes as well as attract one. They simply eyed him, envious, as he walked over to Nina.
